Billionaire Masayoshi Son has a track record in taking on monopolies after building a business that opened up the nation’s telecommunications industry. Now he aims to shake up Japan’s power utilities amid the world’s worst nuclear crisis in 25 years.

Son, the 53-year-old chief executive officer of Softbank Corp., plans to build solar farms to generate electricity with support from at least 33 prefectures. In return, he’s asking for access to transmission networks owned by the 10 regional utilities and an agreement that they buy his electricity.

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The Atomic Age is an ongoing project that aims to cultivate critical and reflective intervention regarding nuclear power and weapons. We provide daily news updates on the issues of nuclear energy and weapons, primarily though not exclusively in English and Japanese via RSS, Twitter, and Facebook. If you would like to receive updates in English only, subscribe to this RSS.

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The artwork in the header, titled "JAPAN:Nuclear Power Plant," is copyright artist Tomiyama Taeko.

The photograph in the sidebar, of a nuclear power plant in Byron, Illinois, is copyright photographer Joseph Pobereskin (http://pobereskin.com/)

This website was designed by the Center for East Asian Studies, the University of Chicago, and is administered by Masaki Matsumoto, Graduate Student in the Masters of Arts Program for the Social Sciences, the University of Chicago.

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If you have any questions, please contact the Center for East Asian Studies, the University of Chicago at 773-702-2715 or japanatchicago@uchicago.edu.